ALEX Salmond’s personal media company was nearly drained of money last year, leaving it with its lowest reserves since it was founded in 2015.
Chronicles of Deer Ltd ended the year to 28 February 2021 with just £89 in profit and loss reserves, down from £62,535 the previous year.
The company’s cash in hand and at bank also fell by more than £100,000, from £104,457 in 2020 to £4,442 last year, according to accounts signed today.
The accounts also suggest that Mr Salmond, who had previously taken money out of the business in the form of dividends, borrowed money from it for the first time.
The new filing says among the debtors is “an amount of £19,755 owed to the company by a shareholder”, and Mr Salmond is the sole shareholder.
Last week, Mr Salmond suffered a major blow to his finances and reputation when he was forced to suspend his weekly show on a pro-Putin TV channel after the invasion of Ukraine.
The collapse of his business finances predates this and coincides with him facing large legal bills following the criminal trial which saw him acquitted of sexual assault in March 2020.
The 2020/21 accounts also cover the period when the former Prime Minister was preparing to appear before the Holyrood Committee in the so-called Salmond case.
MSPs investigated how the Scottish Government bungled an internal inquiry into sexual misconduct complaints against Mr Salmond, which resulted in him being told a £512,000 fee after he successfully challenged the proceedings of the government in the context of judicial review.
The months leading up to Mr Salmond’s appearance before the inquest in February 2021 saw a flurry of correspondence between parliament and his lawyer, David McKie of Levy & McRae, about the evidence, delays and terms of his appearance.
A regular complaint in the correspondence was that Mr. Salmond was a private citizen who was subject to considerable expense due to the slow process.
In early 2021, Mr Salmond also set up his new party, Alba, ahead of the Holyrood election.
He donated £11,769 in cash to her, but failed to get a single MSP elected.
Chronicles of Deer Ltd was set up in February 2015 to channel the former SNP leader’s publishing income from his 2014 Referendum newspaper and other writing.
In 2017, after Mr Salmond lost his Westminster seat to the Tories, he moved into television with his weekly show on RT and the business had a new source of income.
However, last week Mr Salmond was forced to suspend the show in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The show is produced by another of his companies, Slainte Media Ltd, although it is largely owned by Mr Salmond’s business partner and co-presenter Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh.
However, Chronicles of Deer Ltd has Mr. Salmond as the sole shareholder.
In its first five years, Chronicles of Deer had profit and loss reserves of between £24,368 and £154,892, making the £89 in its sixth year exceptional.
Similarly, the company’s “cash in bank and cash” had ranged between £32,307 and £167,156 in its first five years, making the £4,442 in its six years another exception.
Previous accounts show Mr Salmond receiving dividends of £65,000 and £91,000 in 2017 and 2018 respectively.
Mr. Salmond was invited to comment.
